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dell dvd drive

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phillipmartinez

Junior Member
i recently got a new dell latitude d510 laptop, for free. the ac plug-in on the motherboard was bad. i put in a new motherboard and now everything works fine but the dvd drive. when my ac power went and the battery power went as well, i had no way of getting the rented dvd out of the drive. i didn't know about the little hole that you push in with a paper clip!! was i tried prying open the drive just enough to get the disk out. now when i try to play dvd's i get nothing. the drive on this dell model slides in and out. when in it detects that there is a dvd drive in it, but doesn't play dvd. it will play cd's just find. anyone got any opinions or tips on a "how-to" fix?
 
If it plays CDs the hardware is probably OK. What happens if you put a data DVD in - does it show up in My Computer? How about a video DVD, anything there? Do you mean it doesn't work period or it just doesn't autoplay anymore?

Prying the drive open shouldn't damage it. One of my kids actually ripped the whole CD drawer out of a CD-ROM drive once. Still worked fine after I put it back.
 
if i put in a video dvd, say a movie, the little cd icon pops up, but no play, then under my computer, where it normally says: dvd/cd-rw drive, it will read audio cd. it almost like it doesn't have enough power. do cd spin at a slower rate? here's the thing. i have two of these laptops. dell accident sent me another one!! if i take out the drive from the new one and put in the older one i get nothing still. so i'm saying if i but the boken dvd drive into the new laptop, it still doesn't work.
 
If the problem follows a certain piece of hardware, it's probably the hardware. If your drive will read CDs but not DVDs I would suspect that the laser or the lens is out of alignment. CDs and DVDs require different modes from the laser, and DVDs are denser and so less forgiving of bad alignment. Mid-to-high-end consumer electronics DVD players often have two lasers, one for CD and one for DVD.

If it is the laser or the lens this isn't something you can fix yourself. Calibration for those things is extremely delicate. Bearing in mind that this was user error (you ruined an expensive laptop DVD drive to avoid paying a $3 late fee, essentially) it's up to you if you want to try and RMA it. Dell will probably give you a new one.
 
you're probably right. but the good news is that the laptop was completely free. in fact, i got two of them free from dell. thanks to the smart people workng at dell they sent me two laptops for free. it's great!!

i think i'll just buy another drive all together. and while i'm at it, i'll have to upgrade. mind as well get the best one i can.

thanks for your help.
 
you're probably right. but the good news is that the laptop was completely free.
Click to expand...

Well, the price is right. 🙂 If you have to get a new drive, it's a small price to pay for two laptops. If you're not buying a Dell replacement do check for compatibility first, though, some still use proprietary hardware and Dell has been guilty of this before.
 
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